Pheu Thai to prepare their charter case
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Pheu Thai MPs will hold a meeting at their party offices today to map out a strategy for tomorrow's charter debate, party spokesman Prompong Nopparit said yesterday.
“Pheu Thai MPs plan to work in concerted effort to push for the passage of the charter amendment bill,” he said in reference to the final two readings of the bill that will pave the way for formation of a Constitution Drafting Assembly.
The House committee vetting the bill completed its work last week and sent it back for further deliberations.
In regard to the reconciliation process, Prompong said he expected coalition MPs to ask Deputy Prime Minister Yongyuth Wichaidit about the next step.
The House last week acknowledged a committee report on reconciliation before forwarding it for implementation by the government.
Yongyuth ruled out a suggestion for a series of public hearings designed to build a consensus on reconciliation measures.
Prompong said a majority of Pheu Thai MPs agreed with Yonguth and saw the suggested hearings as an opposition ploy to buy time.
He said he expected the government would start drafting a reconciliation bill based on recommendations from the House committee.
The bill should be ready for debate in the House by August or September, he said, insisting the government was not trying to invoke its majority to mend fences.
He dismissed speculation that the ruling party had already mapped out a reconciliation blueprint designed to resurrect the careers of 109 party executives banned from politics for five years. Rumour-mongers wanted to derail the reconciliation, he claimed.
Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva said he had doubts about whether Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and her deputy Yongyuth could understand the House debate on reconciliation as the two had neither been involved in the debate nor attended the two-day session.
Abhisit reminded the government not to cite the King Prajadhipok’s Institute report on reconciliation measures as a basis for its reconciliation bill because the KPI had already made it clear it would not condone a lopsided approach to settle the political conflict.
He said he feared the reconciliation bill, if hastily implemented without a consensus, would trigger a new round of political disturbances.
From the government’s point of view, reconciliation was a pretext to rescue fugitve former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra from his conviction and punishment, he said.
He said if the reconciliation was to happen, then it should not be about whitewashing a convict.
He said he and his fellow Democrat Suthep Thaugsuban were willing to fight a court battle in connection with the bloodshed in 2010 rather than accept an amnesty granted to them and to Thaksin under the guise of reconciliation.
